Reply to Teacher exposes the craptastic decline iof MCPS in Reddit rant

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]That was a pretty enlightening Reddit thread. If a student is not self-motivated and high-performing, they are completely failed by MCPS schools today. It's a race to the bottom for average kids. And it's entirely caused by central office bureaucrats. Monica McKnight cannot leave soon enough.[/quote]So in summary, to increase graduation rates, MCPS stopped requiring kids actually go to class and stopped teachers from giving zeros for not doing any assignments. That caused a drop in attendance rates, so they redefined absences as just very tardy. The result is that kids without parental oversight are hanging out in the hallways and graduating with no skills, knowledge, or self-discipline. However, the graduation and attendance rates are meeting metrics.

Lol, you all need to name schools for me to believe this. And even more, you need to name schools because all that was done in the name of equity, but if true, it's actually hurting the kids who need equity.[/quote]"

It's a tiny bit more complicated than that. I'm not arguing in favor of the 50% policy, but it's not exactly as described above.

The rule was meant to help kids who had one really bad assignment or one missed assignment not to just give up on the class. So, instead of getting a 0 and seeing that pull down your entire grade, you got a 50% up until the end of the semester, while the teacher was meant to help you get the assignment caught up. Yes, it is onerous on the part of the teacher and both students and parents should be paying better attention than this, but the actual origin of the policy was not nearly as cynical as PPs are making it out to be. It was meant to give kids some grace, and keep them from just giving up and thinking there was no way to even get close to a passing grade if everything they turn in afterward is being pulled down by the 0.

The child can absolutely still get a 0 if the work isn't caught up by the end of the semester, though.

I do think this policy is hurting kids, but it's not hurting the high achieving ones because we're still talking about kids who are getting Ds and Fs. They aren't "competing" with college-bound kids.

What I do think is hurting college-bound kids is the "honors for all" approach that has now pervaded every single grade level up to 11th grade. It means there is no differentiated option for most 9th and 10th graders in English, social studies, or science. Even math isn't differentiated because even the "advanced" kids are still in mixed-grade classes. So, "Honors Pre Calculus" is a mix of super advanced 9th grades, regular advanced 10th graders, grade level 11th graders, and below grade level seniors. That's absurd. [/quote]

That’s always been the case.  The advance as of the class has nothing to do with its content.   Honors in the designation has nothing to do with when you take the course.  You take the course when you are ready/prepared regardless of grade.[/quote]

Up until a few years ago, there would have been an on-level Pre-Calculus class and an Honors Pre-Calculus class. Either would be open to kids who wanted the challenge, but the Honors class would have mostly been geared toward kids for whom this is not their terminal math course. When MCPS moved to "Honors for All," that ended. [/quote]

On-level pre-calc still exists.[/quote]

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